Enrollment

African American Students: 646 headcount at the college or 3.3% of the student population

American Indian and Alaskan Native Students: 411 headcount at the college or 2.1% of the student population

Hispanic or Latino Students: 2,426 headcount at the college or 12.4% of the student population

Success Rate

Continued research provides evidence of disproportionately lower rates of academic success for historical underrepresented students across the nation when compared with other groups of students. Specifically:

Lower Access: Getting in to college

Lower Retention: Staying in a course from the beginning of the semester until the end

Here at the campus, the Sierra College Factbook reports the following success rates by ethnicity for historically underrepresented students for Fall 2011:

African American Students: 56.3% success rate

American Indian and Alaskan Native Students: 67.9% success rate

Hispanic or Latino Students: 68.1% success rate

Please note that that these three groups are the lowest in success rate of this data. All of the other ethnicities listed in the Sierra College Factbook show success rates in the seventy percentile.

Risk Factors

Historically underrepresented students come from families who, for generations, have also experienced the effects of underrepresentation and have a history of disadvantage.

May bring an experience of low expectations from their elementary, middle schools, and high schools and have learned that their teachers and peers may doubt their abilities.

May come from a K-12 school system with very minimal resources to adequately provide bilingual and bicultural teaching strategies or counseling services, and have been taught and assisted by school staff in a language and cultural norms that are different from their own.

Tend to come to college with less high school preparation than their peers and are already academically behind.

Often experience a sense of isolation on campus. Their numbers are lower and they can see this.

Tend to have no or few family members who have graduated from college, pivotal people to provide role models, advice, and support.

Tend to face economic hardships and struggle financially with living and college expenses.

May face first language barriers and are trying to learn English while also trying to learn in their other classes.

Often find that their classes and/or campus don’t have much of a multi-cultural curriculum and consequently lack relevance to their lives as a person of color. They may have a sense of separation from their school and the subject matter they are trying to learn.

Often have to battle stereotypes and prejudice in college and in the surrounding community, which may cause stress, problems, and distractions.

Often don’t have the mentors they need who are similar to them, people who really “get” them, who fully understand what they are going through and the obstacles they might face.